By Vaggelis Patas/ info@eurohoops.net
AEK is expected to officially announce its participation to next season’s Eurocup on Monday. Head coach Jure Zdovc and team captain Dusan Sakota discussed this decision, by talking to Eurohoops.net.
“I am very pleased since playing in Eurocup was what I wanted as well”, said Jure Zdovc. “AEK is an ambitious team while my goal is to coach a Euroleague team. Also, ambitious players come to ambitious teams and this is a way to bring them to AEK”.
The Slovenian coach emphasized on the fact that the road to Euroleague passes through Eurocup: “I can’t find any other way to make it to Euroleague. It’s the only way. They have already said that starting from the 2017-2018 season, they will expand the competition and four Eurocup teams will advance to Euroleague. That is something really good. We can benefit from it”.
Dusan Sakota: “It will help AEK’s upward course”
The captain of AEK commented that “I don’t know the details regarding the FIBA tournament, but what I know is that Eurocup shows and competition. As a result there are always qualitative teams in the tournament. Personally, I fully agree with the club’s decision since this will do nothing but benefit AEK in its upward course”
Dusan Sakota also underlined the importance of the fact that AEK played in Eurocup in the beginning of the season: “Of course it helped. We were in a difficult Group, a Euroleague Group and we won five games. I don’t know if there was any other team with that record which didn’t make it to the Last 32. “The prospect is big when you play in Eurocup, and that is our big goal”.